Slid

How to spell slid

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce slid

What does slid mean?

1. verbMoved smoothly along a surface, or slipped, in the past.

Slid in a sentence

• The coin slid across the polished counter and fell to the floor.

• She slid the report under his door before the meeting began.

Where does slid come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'slide', which descends from the Old English verb slīdan, meaning 'to glide, slip, or fall'. That verb belonged to a wider Germanic family of words built on a root suggesting smoothness and slipperiness, and relatives survive in other Germanic languages with similar senses of sliding or gliding. English originally formed its past tense by changing the vowel inside the word, a pattern called ablaut, which is why we say 'slid' rather than adding a regular '-ed' ending. The same vowel-shifting habit explains pairs like 'ride' and 'rode' or 'bite' and 'bit'. Because 'slid' keeps a single 'd' and a short vowel, writers occasionally double the letter by mistake, but the spelling has stayed compact since its Old English roots.

How the word is built

• slid (irregular past tense and past participle of 'slide', from Old English slīdan 'to glide')